PITT is at the halfway point in Spring Practice now and things are looking good, all things considered, given the sheer volume of change that the kids have experienced.

Coach Graham is making a living off his post-practice videos alone and yesterday was no exception. For whatever else may happen when the season starts, IMO you have to give Graham and the staff an A+ for reaching out and advertising their work… and in turn the PITT Sports Information Department for giving them the venues for doing so.  In his eight videos so far Graham has spent about an hour and a half discussing things with us in an off the cuff manner.  Throw in another 30 minutes or so of answering reporter’s question directly when practices end. We wouldn’t have gotten that in a full season from the last HC.

So – onto what he actually said… The offense won the day.  You just know that when spring practice is done the score will be 8-8. The kids are getting up to speed and he feels like they are ready to kick into high gear.  Not having any TOs for two straight sessions probably helps with that opinion.  Jacobson is doing well with the shotgun snap and while it may be early yet it looks like the staff wants him there for the season.

“Joey, do you like movies about Gladiators?” Apparently our QB Anthony Gonzalez – taking some QB2 reps yesterday by the way – has a new nickname of “Gladiator”.  Not sure why and it’s somewhat strange.

Paul Zeise reports that fifth year senior Buddy Jackson has a new job in addition to pushing for a start DB spot. For what seems like forever we fans have been hearing coaches rave about this guy, over and over and nothing ever panned out.  There was a reason for that as Jackson himself admits:

But when the season started, all the potential Jackson showed seemingly disappeared as he would find his way into the coaches’ doghouse, have to deal with nagging injuries or, at least early in his career, struggle with maturity issues. Until last year, that is.

Then, in his fourth year at Pitt, Jackson, likely the most physically gifted player the Panthers have, not to mention the fastest, stopped being a spring hero and fall zero. Instead, he ended up not only on the depth chart, but also on the field. Eventually, he resembled the player coaches hoped he would be when they recruited him.

“All that is behind me,” Jackson said. “I just am going to take advantage of this opportunity, I am a fifth-year senior, this is my last year, my last go around, I’m just going to be coachable and get better every day and try and compete. I just want to be coachable.”

So this staff has recognized his physical talents and wants to get him on the field, in any way possible it seems, so he’s been taking reps at the kick return positions.  It is a brand new position for him so there will be growing pains. Hey, why not. It isn’t like we have Billy “White Shoes” Johnson back there for us.  Tony Greco at Panther Digest has a good article on Jackson also and goes into more detail.

However, Special Teams coach Randall McCray has also had Ray Graham back receiving kicks.  I don’t like this one bit. If Cam Saddler is going to play a larger role in the offense this season as the starting 2-back and Graham obviously is our starting 4-Back then get them out of the dangerous return business.  Especially Graham!!  We have eight hundred walk-ons on the roster this year, let them do something.

The OL seems to be rounding into shape with one rather new face.  Since Jacobson has moved over to Center rsFR Cory King has floated up to the starting role at the Right Guard position. Zeise talks a bit about the OL shuffle in his Redshirt Diaries.

Todd Graham is setting world records for interesting post-practice quotes.  There is no doubt that the language he uses is very different than what we’ve heard at PITT for decades.  Listen to this:

“An explosive play is plus 25 (yards) or more and hit his head off the goal post, touchdown. That’s what people want to see, that’s what I want to see, unless you’re coaching defense. I want to see explosives – interceptions, scoop and score fumbles for touchdowns. Offensively, plus 25 or more run or pass. It’s priceless in a sense.”

After Walt Harris, who sounded like a dissipated British Earl with that lisp and Dave Wannstedt who was right out of central casting as an “Iron City” guy, Graham is a breath of fresh air. He does have pyromania tendencies though. Everything either explodes or has a high burn rate with this guy.

He speaks to the churn at the center position in what might be a bit of wishful thinking:

“Jacobson, I think he might have found a home (center).  I’m hoping that he found a home there, because that is really what we have to stabilize that. Once we stabilize that, I feel really confident about our offensive line. That’s going to be a strong point for us.”

Graham also talks about being a “Personnel Director” for the program. I think it’s good that he’s stressing off the field actions in his leadership of our student-athletes as evidenced by this quote:

We’re spending a lot of time talking to these guys about the Pitt Way. It speaks about your body language. I’m not as concerned with what someone says—we’re going to speak victory. I’m interested in their body language. I want to coach their body language. It talks about the attitude with which you approach things.

Walk into the joint like you owned the place.  People scoff at things like this and such, but what that does for young men is that it allows them to say to others… “You may not like this, but your opinion doesn’t matter here”. Total confidence with controlled arrogance I guess.  Graham then again echoes this and gets a little bit philosophical by saying:

“I tell them, how you walk down the hall speaks, you shouldn’t have to say a word, you should walk down the hall like a champion. It comes from a spectacular attitude. We’re making progress. How you do anything is how you do everything.”

Following along those lines Graham makes us Vietnam-era folks cringe just a bit when he talks about winning the player’s “hearts and minds”.  Hope it works better for PITT in 2011 than it did for Lyndon Johnson in 1968.  Graham threw out some other interesting phrases such as being a “Victor not a Victim” and told us that the team has the word “HEARTS” printed across the front of their helmets.

Man, I just hope there is as much effort put into getting Sunseri able to complete a deep pass or having the LBs learn the different blitz packages by the staff as there is in the ‘influencing the mind’ department.

One last note about this approach of our new staff – Graham stated that even the office workers are buying into the High Octane Offense.  Hmmm, that’s something that I’ll check into for sure as they are probably the only people I’ll be allowed to actually talk to on Saturday.

Odds and Ends

Pat Bostick is churning the word count out.  What was supposed to be bi-weekly articles has become more than that.  His Inside the Huddle report highlights our “4-Back” Ray Graham.  What I like are his detailed descriptions, in plain English, of how this offense will actually be executed, such as this piece:

This will require him (Graham) to perfect the new handoff exchange which the Panthers are adjusting to this spring. On zone plays, this exchange will involve the quarterback placing the ball in the running back’s stomach with two hands, and either letting the running back take it or pulling it back and running himself.  The quarterback will make this decision based off a given defender’s movement, and it will likely happen quickly — sometimes when the quarterback’s arms are fully extended.

It is that minute attention to small issues; “…quickly, sometimes when the QB’s arms are extended” that makes these articles good reading.

Tony Greco over at Scouts.com has a detailed article about our kicking personnel; Kevin Harper, Matt Yoklic and the long snapper, Kevin Barthelemy.  In case anyone is wondering, here is the standard Harper has to meet now that he’s the full-time kicker for PITT:

The last two placekickers for Pitt earned All-Big East honors, and finished their careers in the top four on Pitt’s all-time scoring list. Dan Hutchins graduated after earning All-Big East honors as a punter last year. He also finished his career fourth on Pitt’s all-time scoring list with 200 career points. Prior to Hutchins was Conor Lee, who finished his career second in career points with 263 points.

The staff has been saying nice things about Punter Yolic on a regular basis this spring.  It never hurts to have a kid who can do well at this, even though we all know that our High Octane offense will not allow him any punts.  Greco, by the way, took over the PITT beat for Scouts.com last year and consistently puts out a great product.

It is nice to see a player on someone else’s team, especially a rival school, get compared favorably to one of our own.  Tony Dobies of the Trib-Review has an article on WVU’s “New Offense” and in it he says this:

Former Norwin High School product Tyler Urban stood out on the first day of practice, Stewart said. The former tight end has been moved to slot receiver, where he is being compared to Pitt receiver and Urban’s high school teammate Mike Shanahan.

Well, Shanahan is a good WR and is certainly someone whose play should be emulated.  Here’s wishing Urban good luck with that in every game but one.  Dobies also has a quote from WVU’s new receivers coach Daron Roberts who, when talking about accepting the WVU position, says “I called a lot of people around the league, and to a man people didn’t hesitate to say ‘Go there, This feels like the town I grew up in in Texas. I’d like to know exactly which Texas town he grew up in then.  There is a huge difference between Austin, TX and Donkey Balls, TX.   Of course, he was coming from coaching in Detroit so Morgantown probably did look good in comparison.

…And for one of the most ironic things I’ve read lately, there was this news about a 19 year old kid who went through the window at the Petersen Events Center.  Key element of the story?  “There were initial reports the man got into a three-point football stance and yelled “hike!” before he crashed through the glass”. Didn’t I tell you guys…? I told you that we have problems at the center position.

Who is the guest Author today?

“I was on the field for the seventh spring practice. Very suddenly there came back to my soul motion and sound, the tumultuous motion of my heart, and in my ears, the sound of its beating.  Then a coach’s whistle and a pause in which all was blank. Then again sound, and motion, and touch, that I could not force my imagination to regard as unreal.  Unreal, even while I breathed… As I waited for this practice to be done with, I glanced at the scoreboard clock; its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made a circuit of the face, and the final hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock…a note and emphasis that, at the lapse of that hour, signaled the end of the QB drills.  For the moment at last, I was free.  Free and in the grasp of the inquisition that would follow in the form of QB team meetings…”

Next practice: Saturday, April 2nd.